


The Day You Left (And the Day You Came Back)

by along_those_lines



Series: Kissing Prompts [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Through Season 7, F/M, Mostly Ignoring Season 8, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 11:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/along_those_lines/pseuds/along_those_lines
Summary: Pidge faces a crisis when Lance doesn't return from a dangerous mission.





	The Day You Left (And the Day You Came Back)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for kissing prompts that I did a while back.   
This one was for #6: "I'm Sorry" Kiss, and #7: "I've Missed You" Kiss  
Canon-compliant through Season 7, but that's about it.   
Enjoy!

Pidge sat at the kitchen table, staring intently at the wall in front of her. She wishes she could say that she didn’t know how long she’d been there, but judging by the fact that the sunlight streaming through the window had moved from the floor to the top right corner of the wall, she would estimate it has been at least five hours.

Her stomach rumbles. She wishes she had thought to go out and eat before the cafeteria on the Garrison campus closed. Then she wouldn’t have to cook for herself.

She continues to stare at the wall. Despite her body’s signals, she doesn’t feel like eating.

Pidge wishes Lance was here.

_ Lance stood on the tarmac, laughing at something with Hunk and Shiro as Pidge approached. Lance turned and saw her, before scooping her up in his arms and twirling her around, a huge smile on his face as he put her down, keeping her in his hold. Pidge smiled back up at him, although less enthusiastically. _

_ “Hey babe. How are you holding up?” Lance asked, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on her lips. Pidge felt her smile grow just a little bit wider. _

_ “I’m holding up okay.” She reached up and kissed him again, “I wish you didn’t have to go, Lance.” _

_ Lance’s expression fell slightly, and he brought a hand up to cup her face. Pidge loved the way the coolness of his ring contrasted with the warmth of his hand. _

Pidge looked down at her own hand, silently admiring the way that the light glittered in the diamond placed daintily on her ring finger. She and Lance had been married for almost a year now. It hadn’t always been easy, but it had been worth every minute. She wouldn’t trade him for the world.

She shifted her gaze from the ring on her finger to the small stick lying on the table. She knew Lance would freak out if he knew she had placed it in the same place that they eat, but she couldn’t really bring herself to care. On one end of the stick was a piece of paper that kinda reminded Pidge of a pH test, although the purpose of this paper was slightly different. On the other end was a small screen embedded in the plastic. Two parallel lines were displayed in perfect clarity.

Pidge was pregnant.

_ “It’s only for two weeks, Pidge. Diplomatic meetings around a couple of neighboring galaxies, and then I’m back home before dinner. I promise.” Lance rationed with her. _

_ “I know, but I wish that Hunk could go instead of you, or I could go instead of Keith, or something. You know Keith isn’t good at these things anyway.” _

_ Lance laughed, “Yeah, but neither are you, my dear. Remember what happened on Yemurill?” _

_ Pidge remembered perfectly well. After a wonderful meal and amicable negotiations thus far, the Yemurillan Prince had gotten a little too tipsy and tried to pull a line on Pidge. Next thing anyone knew, the poor prince was lodged into the wall above the dining room table, hanging upside down with two of his feet shoved in his mouth. _

_ Pidge rolled her eyes, “He totally had that one coming.” _

_ Lance laughed again, throwing his head back and making Pidge’s heart skip a beat. He leaned back in and placed his forehead on Pidge’s. “Fine, I’ll give you that one.” He placed a quick kiss on her nose, “Besides, Keith is the Black Paladin, he’s really kinda needed at these diplomatic meetings and such, which is why he needs his right-hand man to bail him out of all the sticky situations that Marmora blade gets him in.” _

_ Keith called from the other side of the tarmac, “I have ears you know!” _

_ “Stupid Galra ears!” Lance lifted his head and shouted back, since Keith was much too far away to have heard that with human hearing. _

_ Pidge laughed, “Hey, Lance?” _

_ He turned his attention back to her, humming and absentmindedly taking one of her hands in his and bringing it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles while she talked, “Don’t ever talk about Keith when we’re cuddling again.” _

_ Lance paused for a second, before bursting out laughing again, “Alright, Pidge. Whatever you say.” _

Unable to stare at the pregnancy test any longer, Pidge got up from the table, and finally began to assess the bodily functions that she had ignored since she took the test earlier this morning. After relieving herself and changing into some less sweaty clothes, she headed into the kitchen to try to find something to eat. She left the test on the kitchen table, and tried to leave it out of her mind.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy to be pregnant. Lance and her had talked extensively on how excited they were to have a family one day. Especially Lance; he was ecstatic about the thought of being a father. It was just the specific circumstances that made her anxious.

She put water on the stove to boil, pulling some linguine out of the pantry. She then hopped up onto the counter and stared at the wall some more. At least this time she had a fresh perspective.

_ “Take me with you, Lance. I don’t want to be away from you for so long.” Pidge pouted, pulling the puppy-dog eyes out of her box of tricks, knowing full well that after three and a half years of being together, he was mostly immune to them, especially knowing how important these diplomatic meetings were. She knew she was being dramatic and that it was only two weeks, but she couldn’t help it. _

_ “Pidge, you need to stay here. You’ve got to cover my classes for me, remember?” Lance reminded her jokingly. _

_ “As if I could actually teach your classes, Lance. I’m no pilot. What business do I have teaching a piloting class? You should have asked Shiro.” _

_ “You piloted a lion same as me, Pidge. Besides, everyone in my class is scared to death of you. You can just call any of them by any name off the top of your head and they’ll probably pee themselves.” _

_ Pidge giggled softly, before growing serious again. She looked him in the eyes, gripping his shoulders hard, “Lance, I don’t want you to go. I know I’m supposed to be the rational one about this kind of thing, but I have a bad feeling about this.” _

_ Lance cradled her face again, bringing his forehead to hers, obviously trying to bring her comfort in this, “I’m sorry, Pidge. I’ll be back in two weeks.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, telling her everything she needed to know through the kiss. _

Pidge heard a hissing sound on the stove, bringing her back to the present. She turned and saw that her water was boiling over. She quickly jumped off of the counter, removing the pot and turning off the stove. She leaned heavily against the counter.

Perhaps she shouldn’t be cooking in this state.

Her goodbye with Lance had been almost three months ago. Four days into their mission, Keith and Lance’s radios had gone inexplicably silent, and they hadn’t come online since. Pidge and Allura had immediately flown out to their last known location, only to find empty space, with nothing in reach for lightyears.

Pidge felt tears start to well up in her eyes, but she refused to cry.

She had worked tirelessly towards tracing their last known signal, but she knew deep down that if they weren’t broadcasting, there was no signal to trace. She had originally thought that the stress of the two paladins going missing had been what had been causing her cycle to be late. But after the third month with nothing, she couldn’t deny the possibility of her being pregnant any longer.

That is what led her to her current situation, sitting alone in her and Lance’s small apartment, alternating between failing at cooking and staring forlorn at the positive pregnancy test on the table. If she truly was pregnant, she’d be well over three months along at this point. She was almost finished with her first trimester and she hadn’t even known she was pregnant.

Even more important,  _ Lance  _ didn’t know she was pregnant. And on the twelfth week of a two-week mission, there was an 89% chance that he would never know she was pregnant.

It was that thought that made the tears fall.

A few days later, and Pidge still hadn’t removed the pregnancy test from the table. She can’t bring herself to touch it again; as if the act of acknowledging it will really make it true. Irrationally, she thought that if she ignored it, everything would go back to the way it was before.

Pidge was attempting once again to cook without burning the food, a task which she was currently having about 14% success after finding out about her pregnancy. She had dropped 21% from where she was after she had found out Lance was missing, which was already far below her usual 63%. Maybe she was just a bad cook.

The phone started ringing.

Knowing that in this frame of mind she wouldn’t have the brain power to cook  _ and _ talk on the phone, she turned off the stove in order to answer the phone.

“Hello?” She answered, and it was at that point that she realized that she hadn’t spoken in three days. Only cried. Which made her voice thick, scratchy, and barely recognizable.

“Katelyn? Is that you?” Iverson’s voice rang through the receiver.

Pidge cleared her throat before trying again, “Sorry. Yeah, this is Katie.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if Iverson wasn’t quite sure what exactly he wanted to say.

“You’d better come on down to the Garrison for a bit, Hon.”

She waited for more explanation, but when none came, she forced herself to inquire further, “What’s wrong?”

Another pause, this one longer. “It’s Lance… We found them.”

Tears sprang to Pidge’s eyes, and she wasn’t sure yet if she should be relieved or devastated. She tried to ask if they were okay, but all that came out was a squeaky sort of sobbing sound that Pidge was sure she’d be mortified about later.

“They’re all right, Katie. Calm down. They just came onto our radar, and Hunk and Allura already flew out to escort them back. But you should be here.”

She nodded, before realizing that he couldn’t see her, and said, “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Pidge hastily scrambled to shove shoes onto her feet, before grabbing the first hoodie she could get her hands on, and rushing for the door. When she had turned the handle she stopped, spotting the positive test still lying on the table. On impulse, she decided to grab it, shoving it into her hoodie pocket and fleeing the apartment.

By the time she got to the tarmac, the lions were visible as they came in to land.  _ I should have been here. _ She realizes when she views the lions coming in with a lack of green among them.

She only dwells on that for a moment however, when the red lion lands right in front of her. As soon as the lion’s head starts dipping towards the ground, Pidge is running. She meets Lance before he’s even gotten both feet on the ground, and almost knocks him off of his feet when she jumps into his arms, holding onto him like a baby koala.

Lance doesn’t comment, only sinks to his knees as Pidge cries in his arms, blubbering about how much she’s missed him and how worried she was, and don’t you ever do that to me ever again Lance McClain.

She felt more than heard Lance laugh, but it sounded watery, and he clung to her just as tightly.

Distantly she was aware of Hunk teasing them, before realizing how shook up they really were and transferring his teasing to Keith and Allura, who had had a similar (although less dramatic) meeting upon exiting their lions. When Keith made a rude gesture, Hunk gave up, going to greet Shay even though he’d only been gone for a matter of minutes. I guess he didn’t want to feel left out.

After not nearly enough time, Lance began to pull out just slightly, only so that he could get one his hands between them to cup her face and bring her eyes to his. Pidge probably looked like a complete wreck, between all the crying she had been doing and the general lack of self-care she had employed since Lance had gone missing.

Lance’s eyes were also red and puffy, and a nasty bruise framed his left temple, but he was here; he was alive.

“I missed you, Pidge. I missed you so much.” He swooped in for a kiss, one which Pidge returned heartily.

Her joy at seeing him again and holding him in her arms manifested itself into uncontrollable laughter, and she soon had to break the kiss and bury her face in his shoulder because she was laughing so hard. Unfortunately, because of her strange emotional spectrum due to the baby in her belly, her laughter still sounded like sobs.

Lance quickly became concerned, asking her what was wrong and if he did something. She started shaking her head, lifting it up to look him in the eyes, so that he could see that she was so unbearably happy. Lance started laughing with her.

When she was finally able to control her laughter, she remembered the test in her pocket. She caught Lance’s attention and pulled the stick out of her pocket, “I have a surprise for you.” She held it in front of his face for him to see.

Lance went slightly cross-eyed for a second, trying to understand what Pidge had whipped in front of his face.

After a couple seconds, comprehension seemed to dawn on him, and he caught her eye.

“Is that…?” He asked hesitantly, not wanting to believe it.

“It is. I’m pregnant!” She exclaimed, catching the attention of the rest of the team nearby.

“When did you find out?” He asked, still wide-eyed in awe, and holding her just a little more cautiously now.

“I just found out a couple days ago, but I’m just over three months along.” By now most of the team had made their way over, wondering what all the commotion was about.

“What’s happening you two?” Shiro asked, and Pidge handed him the test from where she sat on the ground.

“Are you showing yet?” Lance asked softly, sounding like he missed the privacy of a few moments ago.

Pidge paused, realizing that she hadn’t even thought about whether or not she would be showing yet.

“Let’s find out.” She said, and reached down to pull her shirt and hoodie up to reveal her stomach. She could just begin to see the start of a bump forming.

Lance placed his hands reverently over her abdomen, before catching her eye and leaning in for another kiss, tears welling up in his eyes once again, “We’re having a baby, Pidge!”

Pidge looked around at the team surrounding them, and nodded. Yeah, they were having a baby.


End file.
